


September 11th

by KickAir 8P (KickAir8P)



Category: Highlander (1986 1991 1994 2000 2007)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Inspired by Real Events, September 11 Attacks, Unbeta'd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-09-12
Updated: 2001-09-12
Packaged: 2017-10-14 15:03:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/150537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KickAir8P/pseuds/KickAir%208P
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A day in the life of Connor MacLeod.</p>
            </blockquote>





	September 11th

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: Nothing from the Highlander franchise belongs to me, see Panzer, Davis, et al. for that. No infringement intended, no profit made.
> 
> NOTES: AU (ignores Endgame). Not beta'd. Not fact-checked. I just spilled this onto the keyboard while trying to cope.

Connor was in the rotunda when he heard the noise from the first plane hitting Tower One.  He recognized the sound immediately, allthough the last time he'd heard it was World War II.  He turned on CNN, grabbed his summer jacket, and sheathed a gladius in it -- short, thick, strong, adequate for an Immortal's basic self-defense, and he could do things with it the katana would be useless for.  Like using it as a crowbar.

The TV gave him what he needed to know.  The World Trade Center was quite a few blocks away, but driving would be useless.  He left through the empty antique store, throwing up a brief prayer of thanks that Rachel was on an acquisitions trip in Vermont, and started running in the direction of the smoke.

He got there just as the second plane hit Tower Two.

Evacuees were streaming from both buildings.  One man ran out of a door burning, and Connor saw several people tackle him and smother the flames with their jackets and blazers.  Then they got him back on his feet and kept him moving, getting him away.

Aside from screams when the plane hit, everyone stayed calm, leaving the area quickly without panicking.  A man next to Connor stumbled and fell, blood from his shoulder soaking through his three-piece suit and dripping onto the ground.  Connor picked him up and carried him, moving with the crowd away from the disaster.  A nearby hotel had set up an aid station, and he left the wounded man there with the EMTs, and went back to the towers.

He kept people moving, picking them up when they fell, pointing the way out when they got disoriented.  He knew he could do the most good up in one of the towers, searching for people trapped up there.  But the rescue workers would see him as a civilian, and getting him out would distract them.  He needed a uniform, EMT or fireman, he was qualified for either.

Debris kept falling from the towers, and some of it wasn't debris.  People, office workers who'd been getting their morning coffee little more than an hour ago, were jumping to their deaths rather than be burned alive.  Connor knew from experience that dying from a high fall was painless (if you didn't count the terror), and better than most ways -- horrible to come back from, but that wasn't a problem for any of them.

That didn't make it any easier.  At almost five hundred years old, he knew he should be tougher than this, not let it get to him, not let it bring his heart to his throat and tears hot to his eyes.  If he let himself feel for them he'd drop to his knees and sob, so he ruthlessly buried his sympathy and turned his mind to the task at hand.  He had to get up there, get through the flames that trapped them, find a way to get at least some of them down safely.

A loud rumbling noise made him look up.  Tower One was sheathed in a wall of dust, dropping like a waterfall.  It hit the ground and *splashed*, rushing toward him as he hunched down and shielded his head with his arms.  Now it was even more vital to get into Tower Two, it might fall any time now---

#######################

Connor breathed and convulsed, sitting up before he realized what he was doing.  Corpses laid out in a neat row to either side of him -- a makeshift morgue, set up on the sidewalk.  He'd been killed by the falling rubble, found, and brought here.  His coat was gone.  And his shortsword.

The dust and smoke were so bad he could hardly see his hand in front of his face -- nobody'd notice if he got up and left, so he did.  Twenty steps away he walked into the side of some sort of service vehicle.  Laid out on the passenger seat were exactly what he needed -- a Day-Glo orange and yellow vest, with a matching hardhat.  Perfect.

He put them on, and suddenly went from bloodied victim to battered-but-able rescue worker -- now he could get into the tower with some hope of being considered a help rather than a hindrance.  All he had to do was find it.....

It was gone.  Both towers were gone.  Barely visible were two five-story tall piles of collapsed girders and concrete, being dug into by teams of men and dogs and heavy equipment.  All around them was a field of debris and bodies, being picked through by lone rescuers.  Connor wrapped his undershirt around his face in a make-shift mask, and went to join them.

He could breath the dust-filled air without needing oxygen hits.  He could stare through the powdered glass floating on the wind, blinking his eyes bloody as they healed and healed again.  When the stone and steel he lifted tore into him, he could move on as his flesh mended, ready to try again.  When the debris slipped out from under him and slammed him into the rubble, he could drag himself off while his bones knit.

Low visibility that hid victims from would-be rescuers sheltered Connor from those who might see too much.  He did what he could:  walk into the debris, find a body.  If alive, carry it a couple of blocks over to the aid station and put it in one of the sheet-draped office chairs serving as stretchers.  If dead, carry it to the nearby building serving as a morgue -- couldn't just leave it out there, that meant someone else would waste time finding and checking it.

Go back and do it again.  And again.  And again.  Ignore the fatigue toxins that immortal healing struggled against, try not to think about the ratio of live bodies to dead ones falling constantly as sunset stole the feeble daylight and many of the searchers had to drop back to await the dawn.  Just go back and do it again.  And again.  And again.

#######################

He rounded a pickup truck and checked the bed for anyone sheltering there.  Half-filled with the ever-present debris, but no-one under it.  He moved to a likely-looking mound, knelt down to check it, and felt a Presence.

Connor stood up slowly from the pile of twisted filing cabinet and paper that wasn't a body after all, and pulled the dustcloth off of his face.  Back by the pickup he'd just passed was a man with a sword.

"Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod."

"Burt Henbreck of.....of New York."

Connor watched the man's eyes flick over him, taking in the dust caking his body, his hunched, exhausted posture, and his obviously unarmed state.  Reluctantly, he kept looking past Connor into the smoldering hell that Connor'd spent the last several hours in.

"So, Burt Henbreck.....you going to just stand there?"

That brought his attention back, and Connor saw his eyes go cold with resolve.

"To hell with this," Henbreck said.  He sheathed his sword back in his coat, stripped the coat off, and dumped it into the back of the pickup.  "The Game can damn well _**wait**_."

Connor pulled off his hardhat and tossed it over.  "Sounds good to me.  Put this on -- it'll help you blend in."

They headed back toward the mountains of fallen rubble, two among hundreds of rescue workers, searching, hoping, digging, trying, finding, carrying, crying, caring.....

**Author's Note:**

> Comments also welcome at [kickair8p.dreamwidth.org/36350.html](http://kickair8p.dreamwidth.org/36350.html)


End file.
